Shoot? Don't Shoot? Ouch!

I have two tender spots on one thigh and a lesson in police training to show for a couple of hours in the Amarillo Police Department "shoot house."

That's where officers from agencies across the region train in real-life settings to decide under extreme pressure whether to take a life.

One instructor, Cpl. Toby Hudson, warned a gaggle of media types like myself there would be pain if we let ourselves get shot by a sort of "high-powered paintball."

So in we trooped one at a time to confront three scenarios, a convenience store stickup, a man wanting to slice the throat of another who slept with his wife and a burglar in a dim hallway.

Here's the short version of my time there:

The instructor tells you the exercises will be really fast with limited information behind every closed door and around every corner. The situation forces a hyper focus – who’s the bad guy, is he armed, will he shoot someone including you.

Here's your gun. There's the door.

The sounds fight with the visual for your attention, and nothing else exists once you zoom in on the most critical. In the practice, there were as many as 10 people on a catwalk above watching the scenario play out, but they’re not there.

And the pain is there because there is something at stake.

Two strikes feel like five, and the pain lingers as a reminder – you’re hesitation got you shot. Taking the time to shout “freeze” got the victim’s throat slit. Some participants wipe out a room of innocent victims and leave the bad guy unscathed. During a chase down a dim hallway you think “cell phone/gun?, cell phone/gun?” Don’t shoot a guy with a cell phone in his hand. Many do.

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It's really too bad not more people can do this.....particularly media. Thank you for walking (however briefly) in the shoes of a officer. They get split seconds to make that decision and as you experienced it's not easy to do. They they get slammed in the media while everyone else who has no idea what that is like gets to armchair quarterback a decision they had seconds to make. I commend you for doing this and letting people know what it's like.